


DCU Ficlets and Unfinished Tales

by firefright



Category: Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types, Batman Beyond, DCU, Red Hood and the Outlaws (Comics)
Genre: Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Alternate Universe - Vampire, Blood Drinking, F/M, Gen, IN SPACE!, Implied Sexual Content, Knotting, M/M, Multi, Polyamory, Robin Pile, Semi-Public Sex
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-02-22
Updated: 2016-10-09
Packaged: 2018-05-22 15:46:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 3,898
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6085527
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/firefright/pseuds/firefright
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bite-sized ficlets, stories and smaller prompts revolving around the Bat Family members and their various allies.</p><p>Latest updates:<br/>5. Jason and Dick regret a moment of spontaneous passion when it leaves them stuck in a situation that is... awkward, to say the least. [A/B/O, Dick/Jason]<br/>6. Tim's quest to find Bruce leaves him irreparably changed, in a way Dick always hoped he'd never have to be. [Vampire!AU]</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Roy/Kori/Jay - Space

**Author's Note:**

> Looking through my fic folder, I realised I had a few small fics and pieces that would never be finished that needed a home, so here we are! Anything that comes under a 1000 words and doesn't fit into any of my other universes will probably wind up here, as will snippets for story ideas I know I'll never finish for various reasons. I may also explore some alternate plots for existing stories that ended up not being used.
> 
> Prompts are totally welcome, feel free to suggest them over at [Firefrightfic](http://firefrightfic.tumblr.com/).

Before he met Roy, before he met Kori, there were so many things Jason had never experienced.

What it was like to have actual real friends to start. People he'd die for again without thinking; people he loved in the way he'd only ever loved Bruce before. Then, they became more.

Claps on shoulders became holding hands became embraces, became the knowledge of what they each were inside and out. And after they learned to trust each other implicitly, Roy and Kori expanded his horizons without hesitating, showing Jason that there were far more possibilities in life than he could have ever have thought possible.

They drive his loneliness away. Make it easier for him to breath through the constant pain and anger in his heart. On the best days, Jason hardly cares what Bruce is or isn't doing in Gotham anymore.

And then there are moments like this.

"Amazing is it not, Jason?" Kori says warmly from where she's pressed against his side, the heat of her orange skin passing through his leather jacket with ease. She's like the sun, he thinks, struck by a rare moment of poetic inspiration: savage destructive beauty made tender by her affection for her two teammate's.

"Yeah, it's... it's something alright."

Jason's never been in space before. All his previous adventures across the earth have never taken him beyond its skies and now he's sitting, shoulder to shoulder with a redhead on either side, breathless at the dark expanse of glimmering stars and distant planets with only a piece of glass between them and the void. 

Kori's Tamaranean battle cruiser is huge, yet the view out the window of her private quarters still makes Jason feel tiny in the cosmic scheme of things.

"Don't think I've ever seen you so lost for words before, Jaybird." Roy puts in from his other side, one hand holding Jason's while the other loops right around his back to cup Kory's waist.

"Oh hush, Roy." Kori rises to Jason's defence before he himself can, "Were you not also so amazed the first time you saw it? I remember well how far your mouth fell."

Jason presses his shoulder more tightly to hers in gratitude rather than sniping that he can fight his own battles. "Wish you had a photo of that."

"So do we all, but sadly the moment is lost to memory."

Beside them Roy rolls his eyes and butts his head gently against Jason's. "Har de har har, are we done being awed at the vastness of the universe yet? Because you know, I really want to do it against the giant window to space. Can we do it against the giant window to space?"

"You have a one-track mind, Harper."

"What can I say," Roy leans back from Jason's retaliatory attempt at knocking their skulls together, "I like to explore new frontiers."

Jason grins. "Boldly fucking where no man has fucked before?"

All things considered, Kori is tolerantly bemused at the laughter that overtakes them, but eventually she leans over and kisses the amusement from their mouths to leave them gasping instead. It's not a bad thing, Jason's happy to add fucking against the giant space window to his list of new experiences.

Especially when Roy does that thing with his mouth.


	2. Vampire - Dick/Jason/Tim + Damian

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Vampire!AU: It's the middle of the day and Dick just wants to sleep until the sun goes down with his brothers, but Damian has a problem with the sleeping arrangements.

Dick sighs, keeping his eyes closed in stubborn hope that if he refuses to open them then he won't have to deal with the impending argument that's about to happen on his right. It's the middle of the day and far too early for this bullshit.

" _Move_."

But Damian didn't seem to get that memo. He hears Tim growl as he pushes closer into Dick's side, obviously just an unhappy at being woken up as he is. "Go away, Damian."

"No. You will remove yourself, pretender."

"Fuck off."

He hears Damian sniff angrily, then because the whole coven hates Dick and his beauty sleep, he addresses him directly. "Grayson, I demand you make Drake leave the bed and give me his spot immediately."

Fine. He'll be the reasonable one.

"Damian," Dick replies, cracking a yawn so wide that it exposes his fangs. He's warm and comfortable, and his mouth still tastes like blood from the kisses he shared with his brothers after dinner. "We've been over this. There's room for everybody. Just comes inside and close the curtains before you let the sun in."

He's referring to the thick drapes that close around the four-poster bed he and his brothers share when they feel the need for extra companionship. Sure, the window is covered by thick shutters, secured with locks at dawn each morning against the sun, but a little extra security never hurts anyone - and unlike Damian, a born vampire, the rest of them would burn should they ever be exposed to even a little sunlight.

Dick still finds it ridiculous to think that, contrary to his appearance and behaviour, Damian is almost as old as he is. But then again, born vampires age roughly three times slower than humans, both physically and mentally, so for all that Damian is almost forty in true years he still has the appearance and maturity of a thirteen year-old boy.

"I refuse to sleep next to him."

"Then go round the other side." Tim snaps, hand wrapping round Dick's shirt stubbornly.

"I refuse to sleep next to Todd, either."

On his left Jason is still deeply entrenched in slumber with his head tucked up close under Dick's chin, and Dick carefully reaches up to brush his hand over Jason's hair to keep it that way. It's hard enough to get Jason to sleep at all without risking him being woken up over a stupid argument about who gets to sleep well. "Jason won't hurt you, Damian."

"As if he could." Damian casts a nervous look at the other side of the bed that betrays his bravado, and not without good reason. For all that Jason is frozen as the undersized fifteen year-old he was when he was murdered, he's still incredibly dangerous when riled. And with the unnatural methods Talia had employed to turn him even though he was already dead...

Dick shudders to think of those bloody times even in passing.

"Come on, little D." He says finally, easing his arm out from under Tim to tug Damian inside the bed. "Stop being stubborn."

"I'm not." Damian complains, but still climbs in, pulling the curtains firmly shut behind him. He follows the guidance of Dick's hand to clamber over Tim and on top of his chest (a soft snore from that direction confirms that Tim's already fast asleep again).

"Uh huh." Dick gets him settled so he's laid comfortably, head positioned over his heart. "You need to stop staying up so late." he murmurs, "Little vampires need their sleep too."

And maybe then they wouldn't get into so many midday arguments over who was sleeping next to whom.

"I am well aware of my limits." Damian grumbles, but he swiftly settles down all the same, not even raising further protest when Dick kisses the top of his head. He smells clean and fresh, not like blood for once, and Dick thinks a little too much about that before letting himself drift back into sleep as well.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some notes about this universe (which I will most definitely write more snippets of):  
> Bruce - An old vampire who's been guarding Gotham for almost a century.  
> Dick - Born in the 1970's, was turned at 22 by Bruce when he was shot stopping a robbery.  
> Jason - Murdered when he was 15 by the Joker. Talia brought him back as an experiment with a combination of injected vampire blood into his corpse and the Lazarus Pit's magic. It was not pretty.  
> Tim - Youngest, turned at 18 by Ra's after a battle with assassin's left him bleeding out.  
> Damian - Bruce and Talia's born vampire son, who Bruce didn't know about until recently.  
> The Al-Ghul's/League of Assassin's - Born vampires seeking to cleanse the Earth, etc.


	3. Vampire - hinted Bruce/Jason

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Vampire!AU: Jason comes back to Gotham as a nightmare, and Bruce's worst temptation.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the second of three short scene ideas I have from this AU. Enjoy.

There's blood. A lot of it.

Jason stands soaked head to toe, the bodies littered on the ground around him, and Bruce is roaring inside and out because he wanted him back but not like this. _Never like this_.

"They're just criminals, B." His lost foundling mocks him, all sing-song voice and lies of youth, sucking red off his fingertips like berry juice. "Murderers."

"How... _Jason_."

A killer was never meant to have such a face, still so boyishly round and innocent to all appearances. There was a reason why Bruce had refused to change any of them just because they asked for it, and only reluctantly turned Dick as an adult when he lay dying from a bullet to the chest twenty years before.

Jason though, he had never been bitten. Bruce had never even had the chance to make the offer before he was cold and dead in the ground at the hands of his worst enemy this century. It shouldn't be possible for him to be here, not even as a vampire, yet he is.

"Well that's the million dollar question, isn't it?" Jason snickers as he steps over the bodies towards Bruce, like he's reading his mind. He's completely unafraid, knowing Bruce would never hurt him, not even now. "Let's just say I had a 'guardian angel' who found a way."

The smell is overpowering, and the closer his boy gets the harder Bruce finds it to control himself. His nostrils flair with the hunger for fresh blood that he's suppressed for over a century, and his fangs sharpen and lengthen in his mouth, pressing hard against his lips. "Your eyes..."

Green. Burning green. No longer the delicate teal shade that he remembers.

Jason's fingers, still small, still delicate, reach up to press against his mouth. The faintest taste slips through to Bruce's tongue and he can't restrain a groan, even as he clamps down on the urge to lick it away. His hands grasp Jason's thin waist, pulling him closer. This is such a cruel joke, and those responsible will pay dearly for it when Bruce catches up to them.

"It tastes so good, Bruce." Jason sighs against him, fangs and tongue teasing his mouth. "And it's so _easy_. I'm saving the city." His other hand curls hard and cruel in Bruce's cowl all of a sudden as a sneer paints his lips, "Better than you ever could."

"You're destroying yourself."

Jason hisses, "What do you care? You couldn't even be bothered to avenge me."

That's what this is about. "Jason, I can't kill, you know -"

"No excuses, B." His boy suddenly breaks free of his arms, a bullet from the gun Bruce missed tucked under his jacket rips through his abdomen and by the burn he knows it's silver. Bruce crashes onto his knees with a restrained yell of pain, panting heavily as he watches Jason take quick light steps away from him before casting one final look back in his direction. "It's already too late for you to be sorry. But hey, don't worry," He smirks back at him, "I'll be seeing you again very soon."

Then he's gone, flown like the bird he used to be, up onto the top of the fire escape and out of sight, leaving Bruce alone to try and pry the bullet out of his own flesh with shaking fingers.


	4. Batman Beyond - Dick+Jason

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dick gets a nasty surprise in the middle of the night when Jason comes back to life a few decades later than he was supposed to.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey friends! I don't have anything ready for anything of my ongoing stories at the moment, so here's a piece of concept writing I did a while ago for an AU where Jason comes back to life in the Batman Beyond timeline and somehow winds up in Dick's home. Unfortunately I don't really have any ideas for how to continue it, but the image of this scene was too good in my head not to write.
> 
> Enjoy!

Dick's dreams about Jason don't usually go like this.

Usually there are crow bars, blood and fire. The Joker laughs and the little bird goes kaboom, and when Dick comes home there's only cold stone and earth to touch of the boy who was his brother.

Now he wakes up, blinking his one remaining eye open to the sight of a shadow and the feeling of cold steel at his throat. A moment later, as his vision adjusts, the shadow resolves itself in the features of a long dead teenager: Jason.

"Big bird?" The ghost of horrors past whispers hoarsely, eyes wide and wild in his pale young face, "You... you got _old_. It's you isn't it?"

Dick feels fingers trace over his cheekbone and the touch jolts him into waking. "Jason?"

Jason let's out a whimper, and the hand holding the knife to Dick's throat starts to tremble alarmingly, so he takes hold of his brother's thin wrist and gently pulls his arm to the side. "I... why... what happened, Dick? Why are you so old?"

"Shh..." It occurs to Dick that he should be screaming right now, or at the very least freaking out. There's a dead boy sitting on his bed, a dead boy who broke through his security systems without causing a peep, and maybe that's why Dick still can't help but think that this is a dream. "It's okay, Jay, it's okay -"

He puts his hand to the back of Jason's head, fingers winding through dark curls before he pulls the kid forwards and down, hugging him close against his neck. Jason's hair is soft, but it smells of musty dry earth and rotten wood rather than the spiced shampoo he used to use.

It's not until Jason is sobbing against his neck and his fingers dig painful little points into his shoulder that Dick finally puts it all together.

Oh _God_.

"I'm here," he babbles all at once, heart rate climbing. "I'm here, little wing, you're safe. I promise you're safe. I've got you." Dick runs his hands up and down Jason's back, over the frayed fabric of his burial suit that might as well be rags and then up to stroke through his curled hair. "It's going to be okay, I promise, it's over now. You're with me and you're safe, no one's going to hurt you ever again."

Jason's crying is made of hoarse, broken sounds, but Dick is still sure he hears _liar_ woven between his sobs.

"I know," he whispers, feeling far too old and far too young all at once, "I know."

 

*

 

It isn't until Jason's cried himself to sleep and is lying, looking deceptively small and frail, in Dick's bed that he stumbles into the bathroom and holds a pillow against his face as he lets out his own muffled screams and sobs of horror.

It doesn't seem real, it can't be real, but there's grave dirt tracked across the floor and on his bedcovers, and -

Dick drops the pillow and barely makes it to the toilet in time before he throws up.

These kinds of situations aren't supposed to happen to him anymore, he quit the superhero business a long time ago. But then Terry - bringing Bruce and Barbara back along with him - bludgeoned his way into Dick's life, and just like that the rabbit hole opened once more.

"Get it together, Grayson." He berates himself. "Come on, you've seen stranger than this."

He really hasn't, but that isn't the point of the pep talk.

Dick flushes the toilet, brushes his teeth, and then braces himself to walk out into his bedroom again. A part of him hopes that he'll find nothing there, that it'll all turn out to be a figment of an overworked mind, but no.

Jason's still there on the bed, still small and curled up beneath the covers and around one of the pillows. He's definitely real, definitely breathing, and Dick has no idea what to do about that. He should probably call Bruce, except that he's not ready for that conversation yet, or the angry paranoia the old man is likely to respond with.

"How did you get here, kid?" He whispers to himself and the slumbering boy. How was he alive now, if it was him and not some clone or magical construction, and why did he end up here at Dick's apartment rather than the manor? His home is a good deal further away from the graveyard where Jason had been buried than the manor, and definitely not any place Jason should have known to find him. This building hadn't even existed when Jason was - 

When he was alive.

Dick sinks down on the bed. A moment later he sets his hand on Jason's chest, feeling the slow rise and fall as he breathes. The motion both soothes and scares him, and Dick has no idea how Jason is going to act when he wakes up, but one thing is for sure.

Tomorrow is going to be a long day.


	5. Stuck - A/B/O Dick/Jason

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A bout of spontaneous sex leaves Jason and Dick in a sticky situation. Dick only mostly regrets it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi friends, here's a silly little extra fic for you all this week, based on an idea I've had bouncing around in my head ever since I discovered the concept of A/B/O a couple years back. Because when penetrative sex leaves two people locked together for a period of time, trying to do it spontaneously has to lead into awkward situations sometimes (especially if you're a superhero). This could possibly take place in the future of the Family Matters-verse, or be separate entirely, I leave it to you guys to decide |D

This may be the worst situation Dick's ever been in.

Okay, well, maybe not the _worst_ , but definitely the most uncomfortable and potentially embarrassing.

"I hate you." Jason mutters from underneath him, "I hate you. I hate you, _I hate you_."

"You already said that, Jay." Dick sighs, shifting carefully to test his knot. A low snarl of warning from his mate freezes him in place, as does the burst of what can't exactly be called discomfort from his own overly sensitive nerves.

Yep, they're still tied together.

"Yeah well, I'm saying it again. Because this is all _your_ fault, you impatient ass. Because you couldn't stop thinking with your knot!"

"I already said I'm sorry."

"Sorry?!" Jason turns his head, glaring at Dick through the lenses of his mask, making him flinch back a little. The bright red imprint of Dick's teeth against the pale skin of his neck stands out luminously even in the dark shadows where they're hiding. " _Sorry_ , doesn't cut it, Dick. This is not how I imagined dying again."

"We're not gonna die, Jay." 

Down on the floor below the torches of Two-Face's men fan out, searching angrily for the vigilantes responsible for the state of their friends in the next room over. Dick hadn't known one of them had managed to get out a call for backup, really he hadn't. Jason had thought they were in the clear too, so it's not entirely his fault that they're in this situation (just mostly, since the semi-public sex thing is more his kink than his mate's).

Jason shakes his head, pressing his face back down into his folded arms with a muted groan. "How are you even still hard, I've never been less turned on in my life here."

Normally Dick's pretty proud of the stamina of his knot - certainly Jason's never complained about it before - but now... he winces again. Yeah, it's a problem. If only these assholes had turned up ten minutes earlier. He still would have been able to pull out and take care of them then, as much as it would have sucked to cut off the sweet promise of orgasm. But better that than risk some idiot thugs discovering Nightwing and Red Hood locked together because they couldn't keep it in their pants thanks to a post-fight rush of adrenaline. That is one hundred percent a story they do not need circling around to their enemies - or worse, their allies.

"I'm sorry, Jay. It'll go down soon, I swear." He sighs, kissing the back of Jason's neck in apology. At least they're still mostly dressed, that's one point in their favour. Impatience to get on and fuck had neither of them willing to go through the complicated process of getting their gear off entirely. "I promise I'll make this up to you later."

Jason scoffs, "You could make it up to me by letting me shoot these assholes. That'd take care of our problem right now."

Rolling his eyes, Dick shakes his head before administering a warning nip to the back of Jason's neck. "No."

"Spoilsport."

They both duck down again as a flashlight shines up in their direction, pressing tighter into the less than choice alcove they'd decided to have sex in. Or at least Jason presses tighter into it, while Dick pushes further down into Jason. The omega muffles his resultant moan with his hand. 

"You know..." Dick says a moment later, as soon as it's safe to look up again. "It could be worse."

Recovered, Jason eyeballs him with a look that could have Dick banished from their bedroom for the next week depending on the content of his answer. "How, Dick?" He whispers accusingly, "How could _this_ , be worse?"

"Bruce could be coming to rescue us."

In the face of Jason's now bared teeth, Dick can't help grimacing at his own inability to keep his mouth shut.

He's definitely sleeping on the couch when they get home.


	6. Vampire - Dick + Tim

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Vampire!AU: Tim's quest to find Bruce leaves him irreparably changed, in a way Dick always hoped he'd never have to be.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's October, so here's a little more of the almost-but-not-quite-canon Vampire AU. This is the earliest set out of the threee snippets I've written so far, and also the first of two vampire pieces I'm putting up this month. The other will be a full-length one-shot that deviates from canon somewhat more significantly XD

Dick doesn’t know what to say when he opens the door to find Tim on the other side. Knocking was for strangers, not family. Not Tim, and unease sits heavy in his stomach when he looks into his younger brother’s pale face.

“Can I come in?” Tim asks him. Soft and timid and _wrong_.

It doesn’t take much, but then the realisation hits, and inside his chest Dick’s heart breaks, just as surely as if someone had driven a stake through it.

“Yeah, Tim.” Dick whispers, offering what feels like an unnecessary invitation. “Yeah, come in.”

He steps back as Tim steps forwards. One step, two steps. Far enough for him to cross the threshold of the penthouse’s doorway from the rooftop outside. Then Dick opens his arms, and like a young tree breaking in the wind, Tim collapses forwards into them.

Beneath his suit and cape Tim is cold. His hair, always dark, is now even thicker and blacker when he pulls down Red Robin’s cowl, and his eyes, the blue-gray of an oncoming storm cloud, now have a luminous sheen to them that was never there before. Never could have been there before. Not so long as Tim was human.

“He didn’t have to do it, Dick.” Tim whispers against the bare flesh of his throat as he shivers. “He didn’t have to do this to keep me alive.”

“Tim…”

“Ra’s. The wound it - he has the people, the equipment. They could have operated. He didn’t have to…”

Tim gasps are soft little puffs of air he doesn’t need anymore, as red tears stain the whites of his eyes and spill down his cheeks. Dick’s shirt collar is ruined, but he doesn’t care one little bit as he holds him tight in the middle of the hallway. 

With just those few words his blood has gone cold.

It wasn’t supposed to be like this. Tim was supposed to be the one out of them who lived, who got to see the rosy tint of dawn every morning and feel the warmth of the sun on his skin. He was supposed to be the one who went to college, who had a family and a life outside of the night: he was supposed to grow old when the rest of them no longer could.

But now he can’t. Never will. Because of Ra’s al Ghul.

Dick presses his face into Tim’s hair as he draws him in closer, running his fingers down and over his back. “Tim. Tim, I’m so sorry… I… I should’ve…”

Should have kept him close. Should have kept him safe. Should have let him be Robin a few more years before handing off the title to Bruce’s blood-born son in the wake of his father’s death. In Gotham Tim had been protected, but out in the world beyond the dark powers that hungered after Bruce’s legacy had been all too eager to seize the opportunity to steal him from them.

“He didn’t have to do it.” Tim says again. Limbs shaking even as Dick lifts him up and carries him towards the penthouse elevator.

“I know, baby bird. I know.”

Soon the sun will rise, and neither of them can risk being above the ground then. Not now and never again. The only one who can is -

Dick walks into the elevator, cradling Tim close in his arms. From the kitchen he feels Damian’s eyes on them, sharp and dark and _angry_ , for reasons Dick will have to be sure he understands later on.

Bruce damn well better be alive, if this is what Tim’s quest to find him cost them. If not…

If not, then Dick will be sure to take Ra’s al Ghul’s heart himself.


End file.
